"Great Mario Party, but doesn't even come close to his N64 outings..."

The Mario Parties were always fun. When MP4 came out everybody pointed out the lack of mini-games and horrid board design. Are the Mario Parties going down the drain? Or are they getting better? They seem to be getting better. I just hope Hudson stops degrading the 4-player games.

Gameplay: Basically like any other Mario Party game; you run around winning coins so you can buy stars. The major change from any other MP is that in each board there is a different way to buy the star. For example in the Grand Canal board, you explore an enormous Venice-like city collecting stars the basic way. In the Pagoda Peak board, you climb a one road mountain, but when you buy the star, the price goes up. The mini-games are all fun and entertaining, and easy to learn. 8 player mode is added to the Mario Party and does a fun and good job. Mic mode is returned with more mini-games, but no Star-sprint or Trivia!!? There is some negative, though. Surprisingly Nintendo didn't put many 4 player mini-games in at all, and most of them are really generic. Plus duel mode is really stupid now. To enter a duel mini-game, you must land on a duel space. I wish Nintendo did duel mode the classic way. Overall, most of the mini-games are good, but the lack of 4 player mini-games annoys me.

Graphics: The graphics in this Mario party are the same as the other Gamecube titles. Some things looks offly blocky though ( Koopa Kid ), and some baddies look pathetic. Wait till' you see WTF they've done to Ukiki. Other than that the graphics are mostly smooth and excellent. The boards look really rendered. Even the menus look great.

Sound: Music has always been good in MPs, and this one is no exception. The music you can hum along to and will have stuck in your head for days! The characters all make there despair and winning noises which is kinda funny. You can press L during a board map to taunt. Each taunt is different and is in a dissing fashion, but most are VERY annoying. Toadsworth sounds awful, but I can't really give this a lower score because of some lame old man.

Replay: You can spend hours and hours playing this game with your friends or family. It will take a while to unlock all the mini-games and other stuff so you'll be playing Mario Party 7 for more than 15 hours!! This game isn't short at all and will probably never get old for you, but I think Mario Party 6 is better ( due to the day and night system ). I don't really care which Mario Party you get, as long don't get 4.

Buy, Rent, or Leave: Buy it if you like Mario or good fun with your friends. If you hate Mario, you should still rent it cause it's very fun. Leave if you hate Nintendo or don't like playing video games with your friends.

Conclusion: This is a good Mario Party, and is nothing to sneeze at. You will have lots of fun playing this. Thanks Nintendo for making another Mario Party deserving of a review ( though it could use some minor improvements ).

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/06/06, Updated 11/27/06